The way those pillows were placed just so, made the policemen write it off as just another runaway case. For us, the mystery continues.

I have seen my parents sway in their resolve to find her and despair as they slowly lose hope. They haven’t forgotten, but they talk less and less about her. Something like that can break down a family; I’m glad that hasn’t happened to us.

Out in town, I catch my mother taking a long, unabashed look at the faces of strangers who come to visit our town. She is looking for her. She is looking for her in those strangers. Have you seen my Risa, my mother’s eyes inquire from them, do you have a message from her? Sometimes I have even seen her caress girls who smile back at her.

Risa, we are waiting for your return. We will not ask questions, we just want you to come back home.

I am older now than Risa was then. I miss her still. Only now I feel like the big sister.

Never a day goes by without me thinking of Risa. What is my sister doing today? I feel her near mostly when I hear thunder and lightning. Where before I would run to my mother or hide under my covers when I heard thunder, now I run to a window in my room expecting to see her. In my mind’s eye I see her wet, shoeless and exhausted from walking, waving at me and coaxing me to let her in. I will not need coaxing if I see her; I will let her in when she comes to me. I will let her in and I will let her sleep in my bed, and I will sing her the lullaby I hear in my head.

Sleep little Risa,

sleep my little one.

The horse is in the stable,

the cat and dog are entwined.

Sleep my little Risa,

Everything’s gonna be alright.

Sleep my precious Risa,

No more wandering —

Home is where you belong.

The morning when we found Risa was missing, the police came in to question me.

…when was the last time you saw her …what did you guys talk about …did she give you any hints that she was unhappy here …did she keep a journal …did she have a boyfriend …who was her best friend …did she have a hobby …did you guys have a fight…

To the eight year old that I was then nothing made sense. All the questions the policemen asked, were answered with a continuous shake of my head as my lips repeated silent I don’t knows. I didn’t know the answers.

For me, my sister was the taller of the two girls who lived in my house.

She was the one who learned her school lessons well; the one who worked odd jobs and bought me colorful writing paper to send to my pen pal in America. She never told me that she was unhappy or that she was planning to leave. We never fought or argued; though I wish we had.

Risa never talked much, but neither did she ever ask me to leave her alone. She hardly ever turned up her lips in a smile when we got our pictures taken but when we were together she would always look me in the eye when I spoke to her. She would nod and open her eyes wide when something pleased her and with dancing eyes that smiled she would clap her hands instead of a lips-upturned smile.

Did it hurt her to smile? Did it hurt her to talk? What made her so?

She went to school and had many friends but she seldom ever hung out with anyone. She made the students’ list often though she never seemed to care. And at the restaurant where she worked, she washed the dishes, emptied the trash and mopped the floor without complaining. The restaurant manager said so.

Did she have a boyfriend? Did she have a best friend? Did she keep a journal? What thoughts crossed her head?

After that frightful night, I came to sleep in my own bedroom next to my parents’. As I got older I came to like the quiet in the attic. I kept it ventilated and lived-in and I made some adjustments. I had dad install a brighter light and added a sensor light in the enclosed staircase. The window blinds still rattle but the ribbons are gone. I have renamed it my hobbit hole and I burrow in there sometimes when I feel my creative juices flowing. I have desks where beds used to be and big posters decorate the walls. I got a timer and I have the lights turn on every evening in hopes that if Risa were to return she would know that the attic was waiting for her. It was her attic.

I look around the attic and say my silent goodbyes to the windows, the walls, the low ceiling and to the silence. When tomorrow comes I will be moving out of town to go to college. The spiders will come and take residence in the attic. The mice will come in to gnaw on my posters and stalks of paper. But in the summer when I return I will open up the windows to let the sun walk in and allow the wind to blow fresh air into the room once again. And if Risa returns while the lights are turned on she will know that I have readied the attic for her. It is her attic.

***

This is the second part of ‘The Attic’ published November 30th. It ended with the words: But there was no Risa…

THANK YOU FOR READING MY SHORT STORY. IF YOU ENJOYED IT PLEASE HONOR ME WITH A COMMENT. OR BETTER YET, BY SHARING IT. THANKS.

Aww what a mesmerizing sight, I heard myself saying in a voice that wasn’t my own. All the hues of red and brown and Crimson right before my eyes; again that was not my voice.
And this feeling, how can we be flying like this and not feel the autumn chill? I remember thinking that.

We were gliding over a red barn surrounded by trees.

I was not alone. I could feel my companion’s presence though I couldn’t see her face. In a weird way, I knew I didn’t need to look; I already knew it was Valerie Moore.

I heard footsteps and felt the floor move. They were not a part of my dream.

I opened my eyes slightly and saw the silhouette figure of my mother moving in the dark.

“Risa, I told you that rain was predicted for tonight and asked you to lock the windows. For once I’d like to get a good night’s sleep without having to be bothered by things that I specifically ask you girls to do. One of these nights someone is going to come through that window and take you away quietly.”

Humph, as if, I thought to myself still half asleep.

My mother continued: “Spare yourselves and me the worry of such an awful ordeal or I’ll buy a lock and those windows will stay closed forever.”
Mom said all that in one go. That was just like her. Always saying things the grownup way. Only she would have the stamina for such a discourse in the middle of the night. Mom was talking to Risa but Risa didn’t budge.

Feeling exhilarated from the dream I was just dreaming I tried not to listen to her words for fear of losing the feeling I was trying to hold on to in my autumn dream.
Valerie Moore was my childhood penpal. We started corresponding before the end of the school year in Third Grade. This particular evening I had received a letter from her.

Valerie lived in Wisconsin. Her family owned a cherry orchard and she had a pony she called Cubby. She and I were 8 years old and both of us had birthdays in September.

Every letter she wrote to me was riddled with eraser holes and consisted of ugly pages carelessly torn out from big writing pads. But that didn’t matter to me. She told me about learning to milk their cows, about driving a tractor and about picking cherries.

I have never been cherry-picking and much less never milked a cow in my life.
This time she told me about fall coming and described a foliage scene behind her farm. The image stayed in my mind all evening only to resurface in my dream that damp rainy night. In fact, the words I had uttered in my dream had come directly from Valerie’s letter.

The stairs leading up to the attic were dark, narrow and cold. They were enclosed in a small upward-going tunnel and they swerved round so that you couldn’t see if someone was coming down or going up until you were right smack in front of them. It was void of day light, lacked a light switch and a light bulb.

Risa and I shared a room up there but I had had no say in the matter. My mother, suspecting my teenage sister to be up to something, used me as a bargaining condition.

“…only if you agree to share the space with your sister,” mother bargained assured that Risa would soon give up the idea. When Risa said ok without a moment’s hesitation, mother couldn’t go back on her word. And so it was that I ended sleeping in the attic.

Risa chose the attic because of the way it felt so disconnected from the rest of the house. Perhaps it was because the stairs were completely encapsulated, but once upstairs one could not hear anything going on downstairs. And vice versa. I didn’t like being upstairs but once upstairs I dreaded going down those stairs. I always got the distinct feeling that I was about to bump into a ghost.

We had two beds. Mine was closest to the stairs and Risa’s was next to the windows. Mom let me have a small table next to my bed and on it I kept a small glow-in-the-dark lamp. But the lamp hardly got any real light from outside or from the one dim light bulb that illuminated the room. In order to get any use of the glow, I had to wait for Risa to be in the room for a few minutes before going upstairs. Once under my covers, Risa would turn off the light and then I would get my glow. Good thing was that I fell asleep right away even before the lamp lost its glow.

There were no partitions between our beds so Risa spent her allowance on thick silk ribbons. I mean lots and lots of ribbons. She thumbtacked the ribbons to the ceiling boards. She made it so that from the top of the stairs, one couldn’t see her bed and also from my bed I couldn’t see hers.

The ribbons were of all different colors and they cascaded from the low ceiling all the way to the floor. During the day I loved looking at the ribbons swaying with the wind, but at night the ribbons grazing against my face or any part of my body, sent shivers down my spine. They scared me.

That night, the rains came strong. There was thunder and there was lightening.
The old house moaned and groaned. Shrrrrrrooweeee shrrrrrooweeeee rushed in the wind through small openings on the window frame. The blinds rattled uncontrollably. Oh that howling; how angry that wind sounded.

Realizing that I had lost my dream, I thought of following after Mother but I was afraid to descend the stairs. I called out to Risa but she paid me no mind. Closer and closer to her bed I went until I was right above her.

She laid on her side — still as a corpse. I could see the shape of her body and even her hair but her face lay hidden under the blanket.

“Can I sleep with you,” I whispered in a groggy voice, “I’m sssc– scared,” I moaned. I touched her shoulder to shake her but there was no shoulder where a shoulder was supposed to have been. I ran my hand over her body. There was no body there either.

Scary as that was, I snatched off the light blanket only to find that two cushions lay where Risa was supposed to have laid.

At that revelation, my eyes got forced open. These didn’t feel like my eyes. The area around them felt tight. They were being held wide open by cold fingers. My eyeballs felt cold. I couldn’t manage a blink. My mouth flew open as if the ligaments in my neck had been wound too tightly. I screamed but the scream was only coming from inside my head. My voice had deserted me.

Without thinking I scurried over to the stairs and stomped down the dark stairs as if the ON button had just been turned-on inside me.

No time for knocking. I flung the door open. I got to mother’s side of the bed and yanked the covers off of her. I still couldn’t get my eyes to blink or my neck to release the pull it had on my open mouth. I started slapping mother. This woke my father too. He jumped out of bed and turned on the big light in the room.

As if this was the cue that I had been waiting for, a loud insistent wailing bubbled from within me. I started to shake uncontrollably and burning tears splattered from my eyes all at once. My voice was incoherent and husky so with exaggerated hand gestures I tried telling them about Risa. But my parents couldn’t understand.

I dragged them to the stairs and pushed them toward the attic. Mom got to the top first.

“Risa,” called my mother in that voice she used to let us know that we were in trouble. “Risa get out here this minute. Risaaaaa!

The above title is a revised catchphrase from one of my favorite authors propagating positive thinking and creativity. Pam Grout is the author of 19 books including E-Squared: 9 Do-it-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality and the just-released, Art & Soul,Reloaded: A Year-Long Apprenticeship to Summon the Muses and Ignite Your Daring, Audacious, Creative Side.

In one of her recent blogposts she tells me that for years upon waking, she had repeated a positive mantra that went: “Something amazingly awesome is going to happen to me today.” Pam wrote an entire book with that very concept in mind. Speaking from the heart in the way Pam does, it’s not difficult to imagine that the book went on to do extraordinarily well. It touched non believers and believers alike with the ‘tried’, magical, life-changing powers found in those simple words. Every page, every word in the book is bursting with positivity. It’s simply an enlightening book.

But since then Pam has had a change of heart.

She says and I quote: Amazingly awesome had lost its magic. For me, it had become rote, shorn of energy. I repeated it the way most of us answer the question, “How are you?”

“Fine,” we say, without really thinking.

I needed some new mojo!

Nothing wrong with that, right?

So she rephrased her mantra to this:

“Something extraordinarily epic is going to happen to me today.”

I don’t know exactly what it was that made her feel that way about ‘amazingly awesome’ to make her change to ‘extraordinarily epic’ but that’s where I let it go. To me, both sets of words are just as weighty.

As for me

My mantra has always been: Whatever you Do; Wherever you Go, Go with your Whole Heart. The words have served me well.

I still stumble and fall, get frustrated and cry often especially now that I’ve started to test my mettle in Social Media.

I bring my mantra along; I’m doing this ‘SM thing’ with my Whole Heart. It’d be folly to think that I’d be crowned queen right away or that it’d be easier since I’ve only just began — I will continue to dust myself off and keep on trying, believing wholeheartedly that I WILL get it right one day.

I am no Pam Grout. (…)

I respect her and I cherish every word she writes. And though our paths might never cross, our spirits have already found each other’s. (brag: she recently “liked” something I posted on Twitter and I took a screenshot and printed it. Yeah call me vain if you like but I have it sitting next to my PC. Hihihi. It’s my Nobel Prize).

Thanks for reading 😉

Do you have any words that ground you? I’d love to hear what they are.

Are you familiar with the song? If so, I invite you to sing along with me. I’ve attached some amazing pictures I found at Pixabay to help you remember. I hope they help. The hint is in the fond title… and it ends with the pumpkin pie. Enjoy.

I’ve been stumbling and choking as I try to chew everything that’s on my plate right now. I have tons of work, namely reading and writing to do, and sleeping, which up until now had been my favorite thing to indulge in, has become an abhorrent chore. Well, perhaps abhorrent is too exaggerated a word for my little life, but for today, I’ll let it remain as is.

I don’t want to sleep. I just want to read read read. Ah, if only.

I’ve been so negligent to you, my readers. I apologize. So today I want to make up for it, of sorts. If you’re like me, (a story lover) you’ll like this. Here’s a long list of stories entered into a writing contest I participated in. Click on the link and read about all the hype. (This is also the easy “VOTING” page. Just click on the green bar).

My little contest piece is entitled Breathe.Breathe.Breathe. by Selma Writes. You’ll find it at the bottom of the alphabetical list. I’d be honored if you’d read it. And in my world, this is something to brag about: my story and all the stories in this list have already been published by the literary magazine Short Fiction Break. Yay! How cool is that?

In the spirit of total disclosure, I want to tell you that I’m vying for the title of Writer’s Choice Award to which anyone can cast a vote for. A vote for MY story would be a dream come true for me. I thank you sincerely. Voting closes this week, on Tuesday (I believe). My lack of sleep has me in a zombie state *sigh* so, please honor me with a vote and I promise I’ll go get me some sleep…

Do you remember the music you listened to when you were eighteen? Do you remember how it made you feel? Of course you do. We all do!

And to take it a little further, do you remember the perfume/cologne you chose to wear then? I most certainly do. The Avon Lady visited often and kept me supplied with Sweet Honesty.

If close my eyes and I can actually smell that fresh, sweet scent. It’s yesterday once more… I think that’s amazing!

Three decades ago, (0k, almost four decades ago) I was eighteen years old — It’s a long time ago. I’ve seen a lot and done a lot, learned a lot and changed a lot too but the soul of that eighteen year old still resides inside of me. Still young… I think that’s amazing too!

I don’t want to return to that year; I like it where I am now, but to have lived it and to still remember that season of my life with such clarity is a miracle indeed.

Today I pray that wherever you are in your life’s journey that you stay true to that beautiful soul that still lives within you. Appreciate your human-ness. Nurture your spirit-ness. Live in the moment. Stop trying to ‘outlive’ your days or your years.

Because life isn’t something that happens TO you; life is something that happens THROUGH you and AS you. There is no life apart from YOU. Do your living with gusto!!

This piece was inspired by an article in Brain Pickings by Maria Popova
L.A. Paul (Philosopher):
If you were offered the chance to become a vampire — painlessly and without inflicting pain on others, gaining incredible superpowers in exchange for relinquishing your human existence, with all your friends having made the leap and loving it — would you do it?

Photo credits: Dieter_G, Pixabay

The decision to become a vampire, or not, has to be one of the most epistemic situations to find yourself in. For starters, you know very little about your possible future as a vampire. Running parallel to that, you are limited when you face a possible future as a vampire. If you want to make the decision by thinking about what your lived experience would be like if you decided to undergo the experience, then my friend — you have a problem…

If at this very moment you’re wrecking your mind wondering about giving it a trial run, know this — you cannot do it rationally. And I will say what I already know that you know: a trial on vampirey? Such a thing is ridiculous!

For sure, you can’t do it by weighing in on all the competing options concerning what it would be like and choosing on this basis. And wouldn’t it seem unreliable and biased to rely solely on the testimony of your vampire friends to help you reach an informed decision? After all, those vampire friends of yours aren’t human like you anymore. As such, their preferences are the ones vampires have — not the ones humans have.

The trouble in this situation is:
how could you possibly make an informed decision? Look, you cannot know what it is like to be a vampire until you are one.

And if you cannot know what it’s like to be a vampire without becoming one, you cannot compare the character of the lived experience of what it’s like to be a mere human right now, to the character of the lived experience of what it would be like to be a vampire.

This is an apt analogy for most, if not all, of our most important life decisions.

Choices
Big choices all around. To do or not to do…everyday. What is your gauge for the options you consider giving your precious time to? Whoever said that you could have it all wasn’t being completely honest with you. All decision involve making choices on one life or the other.

Temptation is everywhere.

Just once: try this drug; commit this unlawful act just for the thrill; give in to this or that; you only live once, so live — just once! Foolhardy words. Can you please tell me that you recognize the trap and that you can tell where it’s leading. Giving in to such temptations turns you into vampires.

We live everyday, we only die once. I’m sure you’ve heard this quote before; someone insightful said it. Our hearts beat every second we’re alive, why would you choose to exchange one second of your life for something other than living with purpose?

This is not meant to be preachy;
preachy doesn’t teach. Experiences teach. What I mean to do here is to remind you that it’s important to seek out experiences that help us to grow and that teach us things about how to be the best humans we can be. As a human, the sky is the limit. It will sound contradictory, but as humans tapping into the frequency of the universe from an authentic human standpoint where harmony and generosity flourish, yes, we can have it all. But, sorry to say, you will have to leave your vampire aspirations behind.

Go on, immerse yourself in the experiences you’re dreaming about but please be selective about the experiences you wish to have. Become a vampire if that’s what you want, but know that you will have to give up being human to become one. That is the only way!

And at the risk of sounding redundant,
let me just end this by saying that the only way to have experiences that teach us things we cannot know about from any other source is by going in and immersing into the experience itself. Selection is key. Become a vampire if that’s what you want to do, but know that you will need to relinquish your human existence. That is the only way!

Boy, was I in for a surprise… Here I was – little insignificant me, listening to podcasts every turn I got when I heard a name that I have come to love.

The Write Practice… the name came to me through the grape vine at the best time of my life. TWP was holding a Contest on one of its forums. Unsure of everything ‘technology’ I searched for a brave picture of myself and opened up to the idea of a Facebook account in order to dip my toes into the Becoming Writers Forum. Ready to claim a miracle, I joined my first Writing Contest.

Dang! I aced it! I got my miracle!

No, I didn’t win the Spring Contest, but I WON big time.

And little insignificant me — wow, I was pleasantly surprised.

After a month of practice Joe Bunting entices me with a wicked idea:

“pssst pssst,” he calls out to me, “why don’t you write the first draft of your book?”

“Nah, not me. I still need more practice,” I say.

“You’ll get 100 consecutive days of practice, with daily guidance and accountability,” he says.

I needed practice, guidance and accountability. “Sign me up,” I say.

Boy, was I in for a bigger surprise.

I had started exploring a story idea in the Writers Workshop, but I hadn’t given my idea purposeful direction. The pre requisite of a premise, synopsis, and outline came as a total shock to me.

Two words stunt me: “What? How?”

I exhale all the hot air that has my stomach in knots. I sit my butt in my chair and I give my little story idea the respect it deserves.

Then dang, I’m transported and amazed at myself at what came out of me for not fighting the exercise. It was my first time doing something like that. It was hard, I tell you, but I. Loved. It.

I shush the voice in my head long enough to read everyone’s, and I mean everyone’s premise. I feel like a fake again and this time I set my feelings out in front of me for a talk. “Really, who do you think you are?” I reprimand myself huffing and puffing.

I’m sure I’m in the wrong place. I take long breaths.

“Nope — I can’t do it,” I tell them.

“You can do this Selma,” Ruthanne cheers me on. “I’m sure you have a book in you.” I take longer breaths…

I ease into it. I start whipping out 800 words a day. I delve deeper. I find that I like what I’m doing. I try to stay within the confines of my outline but my characters pull me in different directions.

Though I couldn’t read them religiously everyday, just knowing that they were there was reassuring. I skimmed through them and when my day and my characters allowed it, I would read Joe’s words, or listen to the lessons, and sometimes I would even add my thoughts on the threads — when time allowed.

The weekly check ups by the best administrator ever — priceless!

“Oh my gosh, I’m so busy,” I say to her one day. “I don’t know if I lost my horse or if I just found a rope — hahaha.”

“Your enthusiasm is contagious,” she tells me. I gloat at the thought that Ruthanne is referring to me.

Another time, “I wish you could ‘feel’ how I feel right now,” I say to her.

“I ‘can’. I can ‘feel’ it Selma,” she replies.

And I knew she could feel what I was feeling.

Oh my gosh! The company of the other Writers: Price-less.

These other Writers knew what they were doing. They were at the helm of their stories. They were calling the shots with such grace and dexterity and unbeknownst to them, they were pulling me up; elevating me to such heights with their stories that I started to soar alongside them. And I. Loved. It. It was never just about me. It was always them. They helped me to feel what I was feeling. That wind that I felt under my wings — it came from them. It was incredible.

They contaminated me. I was in good company.

And so it went.

The entire time I felt I was in a different zone. I was. Mentally and physically. I absolutely loved the mental part though it was far from easy. I loved the push. It was exhilarating. I felt invigorated and alive.

There were eyesores: my house and my yard looked forlorn and abandoned. Well, the dishes were washed and so was the laundry. But everything else… sssh!

This was not easy.

But you know what I would do it again. Sssh!

Then in week 12 someone went, “woo hoo, I’m finish.”

“I’m almost there,” I told them. I was gliding with outstretched wings.

On week 14 I came to the part where I got to write The End — I cried! I didn’t want it to end…

Though still in a less than pristine stage, I wrote an entire book in 100 days. The practice, guidance and accountability all contributed to get me there.

I no longer feel insignificant. I have an amazing experience under my belt and I have something huge to show for it. I wrote a book! Yay!

I’m not receiving any royalties for saying this, but the 100 Day Challenge was the oxygen I needed to breathe life into my creative outlet. It lit my candle and kept me focused in something that I didn’t think I could thrive in. It changed me. It made me believe that I had a real story to tell. And amazingly, I was capable enough to stick to the program. I would do it again. I would recommend it wholeheartedly. So if you, yes you dear reader are wondering if you might have something like a 70,000 manuscript in you, the 100 Day Program at The Write Practice is the place to do it. Trust me, you’ll love it.

***

It’s been almost a month since we submitted our last submissions with the prized words ‘The End’ attached. I felt such jubilation then. BUT– But, now I feel a little lost. Where do I go from here?

Yes, I have to work on my rewrite, but how do I begin to do that? It’s only 100 days old. Let me bask in the memory a little bit longer.

(Besides, I need to clean my house and my yard.)

I know that I have to replenish my well; the well I didn’t know I had. I will be at TWP recharging. The rest will happen when the time is right.

From someone fresh out of the amazing experience, here goes: the link to TheWritePractice.com/WriteABook, and do drop me a line if you decide to join the community of amazing cheerleaders. I want to cheer you on.

Isabella was waiting for “something” to point her in the right direction with a self-hate habit she had been fighting with for a long time. Then a simple act of kindness from someone who had always been there in her life made her feel worthy of love. It was subtle.

Yet in that subtleness she found her resolve to change. As they say, when you’re ready, the universe conspires to bring you the change you need. Please read. This is the story I entered in a recent contest. Let me know what you think.

In the summer, small colorful salads satisfied us. Fall offers us a chance to revamp our menus at home. For me, everything about the new season is amazing, but I’m particularly drawn to all the food that the season allows us to bring to our tables. Well, if not to our tables, then to the tables at the different restaurants in our areas.

I’m sure that I’m not the only one who finds that food catches the essence of the season and that it nourishes our souls from the inside. Mother Earth is generous to us. That said, I dare ask you: what will be on your table this fall?

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I love the written word; bubbling with the desire to tell stories. Journey with me to hear about the Intricacies and Follies of the people in my head. I will give the town they live in the fictional name of G.G. Marquez' Macondo. I appreciate the ordinary things in life. I love reading, laughing, gardening and learning new things.